Nokia

There has been a lot of talk as of late about Nokia potentially being acquired by Microsoft. The rumors have stated that because of a recent deal between Nokia and Microsoft that will bring several devices to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform such as unlocked Dell venue pro, LG C900, etc.. that we can soon here expect to see the companies perhaps merging, which would fall in line with what Microsoft is trying to do. A number of moves that Nokia has made in recent months seemed to support that fact, but taking a closer look we can now see that it doesn’t exactly look like the rumors are true, although you can never really trust what a CEO says in regards to huge rumors such as this one because would they really want to tell you the truth anyway?

The CEO of Nokia, Stephen Elop said on Wednesday that the reports that the company had agreed to sell the cell phone part of their business to Microsoft for $19 billion is not true. There were a number of well known media outlets that reported the rumor, which has been vehemently denied by the company. The news first came from industry insider Eldar Murtazin, who seems to be behind all of the biggest rumors - some of which have turned out to be true.

“There’s no basis for them,” said the CEO Elop when he was asked about the rumors. It was clear that he was looking to clear the air. While he claims that the rumors are not true that may just simply mean that a deal has not been done at this time. It will definitely be interesting to see if anything about this comes out in the near future, but as of right now it looks like there is no real deal in the works. He went on to say that Nokia has never even discussed a potential acquisition and said that he does not understand where the rumors were coming from.

Skype has been down for a number of cell phone users such as unlocked iphone 4, Nokia N8, etc.. who tried to connect to the service today. The company said that they had identified the problem and were looking to give users instructions on how to fix the issue for those that were having problems connecting to the service early this morning. The company quickly released some very simple instructions on how users can fix the issue depending on the operating system that they are using.

To start, users should close the program both on the main desktop as well as on the system tray to be sure that nothing is running. Then, they should go into the control folders and select the view tab to ensure that all of the entries are available. Make sure that you turn off the option to allow for hidden folders. In this folder there should be a shared .xml file. Once you have located that, you type %appdata%skype into the run option and then click ok. You will then delete the shared.xml file and will restart Skype, which should correct the issues.

Skype was able to very quickly fix the issue and release a workaround that was very easy to follow that most users should be able to follow fairly easily. They will also probably be releasing an update at some point in the near future that does it all for you for those of us that are not as inclined with computer. They were able to quickly address the issues and give users a fix to the problem. Skype’s customer service is some of the best that is out there at this current time and they responded to the issues in just a few short minutes which is something that you have to admire when it comes to larger companies that often take quite some time to address issues that are seen by a minority such as this issue.

The Unlocked Nokia N9 was a device that most thought was never going to be released, but it looks as though there might still be a chance for the device that most thought was scrapped at the time. The FCC filing for the device made its way online today. The device was found in the government database, in which it was claimed that there were six cell frequencies along with Bluetooth and a 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n WiFi.

This shows that the device would be able to debut on a number of different carriers, so narrowing that down is going to be tough until more details are released. The device will also feature a QWERTY sliding keyboard that suggests based on the layout that the device will be available in the US or Canada.

Some have suggested based on the specs that the device might be a great device to run on the Windows Phone 7 platform, although no information regarding that can be released. The device is a promising one, but not a lot has been released about it, until this FCC file made its way online.

A number of different phones have become known to the public in this way, and you can bet that it will be not be the last time either. Although nothing is concrete at this point, the fact that the paperwork has been filed to the FCC shows that there is a fairly great chance that the device could see the light of day some time in the near future.

The unlocked Nokia N9 was a phone that a lot of people were excited about when the first details were released, but it quickly died down when it looked like the phone was never going to see the light of day. Now that things have changed, perhaps there will be a buzz for the device again.

You may have recently heard that San Francisco was looking into the amount of radiation that is put out by cell phones. Behind a very high powered CTIA lobbying effort, the city was looking to enforce laws that rquire cell phone retailing companies to label the radiation SAR levels that were found by the FCC for each of the devices. These plans have been put on hold for the time being, but the city has said that they are still looking into how they can put together a watered down version of the bill to do the same thing.

What the city didn’t state was that the SAR levels that were measured by the FCC are not actually a good way to measure the amount of radiation for each cell phone because the number is found using a variety of tests. These tests do not include the amount of radiation that the end user would be exposed to through using the devices. This means that you could look to purchase a low SAR rated phone, but that does not necessarily mean that the end user will experience less radiation absorption than they would from phones with higher SAR levels.

The changes to the law have not been announced at this time, but you can bet that it will ore than likely require retailers to put the information somewhere in the store, instead of having to label each of the phones - which would require a great deal more time for each of the individual retailers. This is a good move in the eyes of most, because the SAR readings are not the best way to determine whether or not the end user is being exposed to more or less radiation in the end. This is another good example of the government clashing with big business and not truly understanding what they are actually asking of these companies.

Although the unlocked Nokia ( E6 ) and Nokia E7 have had a lot of their details leaked previous to the announcement, today Nokia released information about their two new Symbian smart devices that will run ont he brand new “Anna” operating system. The E6 is a business phone that will come with a full QWERTY keyboard.

The phone will come with a 640 x 480 touchscreen display, as well as an eight megapixel camera. The X7 is a similar phone, but will be geared toward regular consumers instead of business consumers. It will have an AMOLED screen, and will have a stainless steel design, along with eight megabytes of storage.

The new design will feature a redesigned interface, as well as new icons and much quicker web browsing. It is a huge upgrade over previous versions of the device. The new version of Symbian was created to provide a commercial level grade of security.

The pones will be launching sometime int he second quarter of this year. Nokia stopped short of releasing any of the pricing information about either of the phones. The X7 will not be released in the United States, but the company is considering releasing the phone in other countries but has not made any commitments at this time.

The X7 is a phone that is much more geared toward entertainment than it is to business like its brother phone. Both phones look great based on the descriptions that were released today. The strong, yet sleek designs of the phone represent the new style that they have been running with for their last few announced devices. The new Symbian Anna software is one of the best out there for businesses and has become the go-to operating system for Nokia in these cases.

MTS has finally launched their 4G network for unlocked cell phone such as BlackBerry Bold 9780, Unlocked Nokia N8, Samsung captivate, etc.. that the company has been talking about for quite some time. The network has been in the works for a number of months and was finally activated for users after months of planning. This is huge news for customers that have been with MTS for quite some time. This will speed up their coverage and will also allow for more advanced plans for the company moving forward.

This should provide download speeds that can reach up to 21 mega bytes per second, which will be nearly twice as fast as their previous speeds. The announcement came from the president of the company, Kevlin Shepherd, who is the usual face seen when the company makes large announcements such as this one.

In his statement, he said that they were able to upgrade their entire coverage area and will give more device options to their customers. It was a huge investment for the company but is certainly one that they are looking to pay off in the long run. It is good to see that they are dedicated to upgrading the coverage offered, and provide higher speeds.

MTS has continually upgraded their network, which directly benefits the end user. With this most recent upgrade to 4G, they are officially up to speed with the current demands of a quickly changing industry. The press release from MTS was very detailed, and gave some insight into their future plans. The upgrade of their network will open up a number of new devices that were not previously available with MTS previously. Moving forward, look for their new phones to be announced, as well as a number of phones that will be able to run on the 4G network that was recently launched. There are many different phones that will open up to the company now that they have a 4G network.

Sprint has officially ditched their mail-in rebates model, and is now going to be going with an instant rebate model that provides instant savings to their users. Verizon also made a similar move at the beginning of the year. The move will mostly effect their most expensive cell phone. The idea behind the mail in rebates is that a certain percent of the customers will never take advantage of it and will just choose to pay the extra costs rather than spend the time mailing the rebate in. Also, there were issues with the mail in rebate never arriving, which was a complaint of many who took the time to pursue the rebate.

The information was confirmed by Sprint. The official switch came on March 27th, and will continue well into the foreseeable future. The company has not stated whether or not this switch will be completely permanent, but did make it clear that they were willing to give it a shot for quite some time moving forward.

If the switch is is only a temporary one, the company has not released any information regarding when users can expect it to disappear, so you might want to take advantage of the offer while it was there. The company made the move shortly after the same move was made by Verizon.

It will be interesting to see if other carriers follow in the footsteps of both Verizon and Sprint. Getting rid of the mail in rebate is certainly something that would be in the best interest of their customers, but may not be in the best interests of the company. Look for more companies to make similar changes in the future if it leads to more sales of smart devices. That is the end goal but could result in reduced revenue for the company, which could mean that the offer doesn’t stick around quite as long as many are hoping that it will.

With the recent issues that Japan has faced following the fallout of an 8.9 earthquake and the ensuing tsunami afterwards, AT&T has announced that they are going to allow their unlocked cell phone users to make free calls to Japan till the end of the month. Since the disaster, understandably, it has been very hard for people to contact relatives inside of the country. Making outgoing calls within Japan has also been difficult. Some of those from North America that survived the quake have still not been able to make contact with their families.

The announcement by the company is the first of its kind. Shortly after the announcement by AT&T, both Sprint and Verizon announced that they were going to be extending the same offer to their users as well. They also announced that they were not going to charge users for text message fees to phones that are located within Japan.

It is good to see that these huge providers are stepping up and making it as easy as possible for people to contact family members a world away. With the issues that Japan has had in recent days with both outgoing and incoming calls, this should ease the minds of those back in the states a little bit who were worried about charges that could pile up when they try to make contact with individuals in the Japan area.

Text messages might be the best way to try to communicate, at least until things calm down. This will allow them to answer whenever the text goes through and will not require that they answer a call that may or may not go through. The announcements are welcome, and show that to these companies - it is not always all about the bottom line and profit that they could potentially see from a move.

The Get Jar app store is one that has become increasingly popular in recent months. While the Opera mini application might have been one of the favorites of their unlocked cell phone users, that did not stop the app store from removing the app from their app store. The Opera app has been surprisingly popular with many of their users. However, while GetJar claims that there is no malicious reasoning behind their decision to get rid of the app from their app store, some have speculated if it was not a competition based move.

Shortly after the removal, the company decided that they were going to respond to these inquiries in a letter to their users. They apologized and said that they did not tak the decision to remove Opera Mini Browser lightly. They had more than 30 million downloads of the app in total over the course of the last few years when they decided to remove it.

They claimed that they decided that their decision to remove to app was because they needed to continue making money, and the number of downloads that he app was receiving was simply too much for them to handle. It is not often that you hear a tech company admits their shortcomings, but this appeared to be the situation today when GetJar removed Opera Mini from their app store.

They were very open with their reasoning behind the removal, and you can not really fault them for just doing what is best for their business in the long run. They have been able to be open with their processes and transparent so that users are not able to scream foul play. After all, it is not foul play when you admit the true reasoning behind your decision and it makes perfect sense.

As per one of the leading unlocked cell phone blog site, More than 150,000 Gmail accounts disappeared as a result of a bug. All of the information contained in the accounts was also deleted. Imagine losing years of conversations and contacts. The initial estimate was 0.29% of all Gmail accounts, but that estimate was revised and said to be sitting more around 0.08% by the end of the day. According to a number of different reports, the correspondence within these accounts was also deleted throughout the past weekend. Users were unable to log in to their accounts. Once the accounts had been restored, the information within the accounts was mysteriously missing.

Essentially, the accounts were completely reset and all that was left was the user-name and login for the accounts. Google has maintained that they believe they will be able to restore all of the data that was lost. until that time, users will not be able to access their GMail accounts because of the issue.

Google quickly released a statement ensuring users that they were hard at work on the issue and stated that they would be working hard to restore full data access for the affected accounts. This is the first time that users have seen a mass deleting of their accounts and it is not clear what might have caused the issue. All Google has said so far was that it was some kind of bug, which seems to be in line with other reports that were released shortly following the deletion of the accounts.

Users have been asked to not contact support and instead to stay updated with the progress through press releases that google issues. All of the deleted accounts are on the same page and none will be restored publicly before others. Although it is a very large hiccup on Google’s part, it sounds as if everything will be restored.